


Scorpius's Wonderful Life

by AyraBelle



Series: Wizarding World [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (he's also a werewolf), F/M, Post-Hogwarts, Scorpius is a Healer at St Mungo's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AyraBelle/pseuds/AyraBelle
Summary: At his wits' end, Scorpius makes a wish. But a new friend helps him to realize that his life is actually wonderful. How could it be anything else?





	

_Another one_ , Scorpius sighed. Another patient, dead before he could do anything. He had become a Healer to help people, not just to hold their hand as they died because he was powerless to cure them.

Scorpius cursed under his breath as he left the room. It was the end of his shift anyway, so he quickly changed out of his lime green robes and exited the building. He didn't Apparate home right away, though, instead opting to lean against the wall of an alley for a moment. The full moon was the next day, so Scorpius had a splitting headache. He knew he didn't have it as bad as others, though, and that made him all feel all the more guilty.

A particularly vicious strain of Spattergroit had been plaguing the British Wizarding community for three months now. Thankfully it hadn't yet spread to the Muggle community, but the Healers at St Mungo's were working tirelessly to find a cure before it could get any worse. Scorpius knew, though, that they would likely be farther along if they didn't have to stop for a few days every month.

Scorpius swore aloud this time, kicking a trash dumpster. His foot throbbed a moment, he might have broken it, but he simply reset it and waited a moment. He was a werewolf, so any injury except werewolf bites healed within a few minutes.

He heard a shuffle and looked sharply around to see a woman standing at the entrance to the alley, looking at him with her head cocked to the side. He nodded stiffly to her and quickly turned on the spot to Apparate home, not wanting to be the subject of that curious gaze any longer.

He landed in the back garden, and proceeded into the house cautiously – all the lights in the back of the house were dark. Was Liza home?

He walked inside and looked through the entire ground floor to find it empty. He proceeded to the first storey and discovered his wife curled up in her favourite chair in the house – an oversized armchair in her library with the window that overlooked the street.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, jumping up when she saw him standing in the door. 'Welcome home. I hadn't realized how late it was,' she excused herself, kissing him on the cheek and setting her book down. 'I'll go get some food started.'

Scorpius barely had a chance to nod before she breezed past him with a smile. He was a bit miffed, he had been hoping for a proper kiss or at least a hug after the day he had, but he recognized that he was just in a bad mood and refused to let himself take it out on Liza. Instead he sat in the recently-vacated chair and brooded a bit. He had told his team to keep working while he wasn't in the Hospital, but he wasn't sure how much they could get done. They were close to a breakthrough, he could sense that, but when the leader of a project has to take days off there's only so much progress that can be made. Last month had been especially brutal – he had taken a week off in total because of how bad his head had ached beforehand and how long it took to recover.

Scorpius sighed. Even if his team figured it out while he was gone, they couldn't get data from anyone they tested on. Scorpius had had Spattergroit when he was five, so that meant he was immune to getting it again – even this new strain. None of the others had ever had the sickness, so they were vulnerable. That meant that Scorpius was the one taking notes on their previous attempts. He didn't mind, it just made the breaks he had to take that much worse.

In this happy mood, sagged in the chair, Scorpius heard Liza singing in the kitchen when she paused a moment to cough. Scorpius jerked upright suddenly – Liza was Muggle-born, so she wouldn't have had Spattergroit. What if he brought it home to her?

Because the universe obviously didn't feel that his day was terrible enough, that was when his owl Merlin appeared with a letter from his father. His feeling of dread increased as he read.

 _Scorpius,_  
_Please do not be alarmed as I tell you that your mother has contracted the Spattergroit that has taken over this country. She is doing well, just weak. I had Spattergroit when I was younger, so I shall be just fine. Do not worry about us; we simply did not want you to find out through other means._  
_We hope that you and Liza are doing well and that tomorrow's full moon goes well for you._  
_Love,_  
_Dad_

Scorpius felt the impact of the letter like a punch to the gut. His mum had visited them the previous week; he must have passed it on to her. Scorpius sagged back down in the chair. He had gotten her sick, and he could have gotten Liza sick as well. He was doing a good job of ruining everything he touched recently. He suddenly couldn't take it anymore and rushed out of the house, past a confused Liza. He heard her call out 'Scorpius?' but he was already out the door.

He wandered aimlessly through the streets, brooding and barely noticing the freezing temperatures. As he wandered, his mood got darker and he eventually sat on a bench. He should just go live in the woods somewhere – he turned into a wolf once a month, he would be able to hunt and survive.

'Oh, dearie, that doesn't seem like a good plan,' a voice chided him. For one wild moment, Scorpius thought his conscience was speaking aloud to him in the voice of an old woman, but common sense prevailed and he spun to see the same woman that had been watching him near St Mungo's.

'Have you followed me?' he asked, somewhat more brusquely than might be considered polite.

She laughed. 'That is no way to talk to your elders, young man, but you seem to be having a rough day so I shall forgive you of it. I suppose I did follow you – you seemed to be in a mood at the hospital so I wanted to make sure you didn't make any foolish decisions because of it. So here I am.'

Scorpius stared. He had no idea what to make of this crazy woman, and her speech hadn't helped matters in the slightest. He bowed formally to her. 'I thank you for your concern, ma'am.'

'Of course, my boy,' she replied. 'And have no fear – I am not crazy, I merely care about you.'

Scorpius blinked. He hadn't said anything about her being crazy aloud. Was he really that easy to read? He had spent so much of his childhood building up a mask that there were still times even Liza couldn't tell what he was thinking.

'Oh, don't worry about that, dearie. I can just tell these kinds of things. Now run back home to your pretty wife.'

'She deserves better than me,' Scorpius replied, her comment about Liza pushing him past his confusion at the woman's ability to seemingly read his thoughts. 'She'd be much better off if she hadn't met me.'

'That can't be true, dearie,' the woman insisted. 'What about your other friends – haven't they told you how good you are for each other?'

Scorpius thought about Al – so busy now with Jake after they adopted their twins – and Rose and Jason – also new parents. He was afraid to bring it up with Liza, but the thought of having children terrified him. Sure, Mr Potter's friend Remus Lupin had been a werewolf yet his son Teddy was born normal. But who was to say that wasn't just chance? He couldn't stand the thought of putting Liza and his potential children through that kind of torture.

'Dearie,' the woman pressed. 'You mustn't let your fears get the better of you like this.'

'What would you know,' Scorpius grumbled. 'She'd be better off – in fact, I think everyone would be better off if I'd just never bothered to be born.'

'Dearie,' the woman repeated, sadder this time. 'You should never be thinking things like that. Just think of all your friends and family.'

'I'm a nuisance or a menace to all of them,' Scorpius insisted, looking away from her. Something seemed off about this woman, but he couldn't place it. Maybe he knew her from Hogwarts? 'If I hadn't been born, my mom would have had the girl she's always wanted and Al would have made a better friend and Liza would be with someone better.'

'Well,' the woman sighed, interrupting his thoughts. 'I suppose if you're going to insist on feeling that way I'm just going to have to show you otherwise.'

Scorpius was too surprised to do more than look at her in confusion before she took out a wand and pointed it straight at him. As the world went black, he realized that he hadn't even bothered to grab his own wand when he left his house.

~*~

When he woke up, it took Scorpius a moment to remember what had happened. When he did, his eyes flew open and he bolted upright – though he regretted that immediately. He shut his eyes and gripped his head in his hands.

'Careful now, dearie,' the woman's voice said from very nearby. 'It will fade soon, but you likely have a terrible headache at the moment.'

'Thanks for the warning,' Scorpius grumbled. 'Who the bloody hell are you?'

'Young man, that is no way to talk to your elders,' she chided him again. 'But you seem to be in some pain, so I will attribute your lack of manners to that. You may call me Angeli.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Scorpius replied crisply. His headache was going away, but he could still feel it. Or that might be the full moon's effects. 'What did you do to me?'

'Well, dearie,' she said. 'You seem to think that the world would be better off without you. Would it have kept spinning if you weren't born? Of course – but it would be a different world. Besides, there are some people to whom you mean the world and their lives would be drastically changed.'

Scorpius shrugged that off. 'It's like you said, the world would have continued turning. Now what did you do to me?'

'You're getting a rare chance, dearie. You get to see what it would have been like if you had never been born.'

Scorpius stared. 'How do you plan to show me that?'

'Look around, dearie,' she told him. 'You're here.'

Scorpius looked. Everything looked just as it had before she knocked him out. There was snow swirling, which wasn't very common but not an entirely rare occurrence. 'Right,' he said slowly, not wanting to offend Angeli. 'Looks great, but I better get going.' He stood up, was instantly off balance and proceeded to fall straight through a pedestrian walking along the street. Scorpius yelped, but the man wasn't fazed and continued on his journey. He whirled to see Angeli watching him.

'You were never born, dearie,' she explained. 'You might as well be a ghost here – because you simply do not exist.'

Scorpius jumped as another person walked straight through him and didn't even hesitate. What had Angeli done to him?

'I've done what I keep telling you I've done,' Angeli insisted. 'You were never born. Maybe you would believe me if we saw something more familiar,' she mused, waving her wand. The scene blurred and came back into focus and they were somewhere else entirely – it was the house that Rose and Jason lived in.

'You spoke of your friend Jason?' Angeli asked. 'Go look inside, dearie.'

Scorpius approached the house with caution, just in case Angeli decided to reverse whatever spell she had put on him and cause Rose and Jason to think he was some kind of intruder. When he looked in the window, though, Jason sat alone on a beat up couch.

'What? Where's Rose?'

'Do you remember your first year, dearie?' Angeli asked.

Scorpius barked a laugh. 'Which part? A lot happened that year.'

'Indeed,' Angeli responded seriously. 'Do you remember Rachael Lestrange?' Scorpius nodded – he hadn't thought about Rachael in ages but she was hard to forget. 'Well, that plot of hers to bring back Lord Voldemort still failed, but Jason Theodore Nott was with them and did not have you and your friends to vouch for his not being involved in the plot. He wasn't kicked out like Miss Lestrange, but he was placed on probation and carried that stigma throughout his years at school. He still made friends, but he never actually met Rose Jean Granger-Weasley even though he still loves her.'

Scorpius watched as Jason got off the couch and went to the kitchen, coming back with a container of food from some restaurant. Rose was an excellent cook; Jason shouldn't be eating take out.

'Alright, Angeli,' Scorpius said. 'I'll concede that I made an impact on some people's lives. I still say most of them are better off this way.'

Angeli didn't bother responding to this, she merely waved her wand and they were in front of another house. This one Scorpius knew very well indeed.

'Malfoy Manor,' he observed, unsure what to think about spying on his grandparents.

'They aren't here, dearie,' Angeli told him, and Scorpius found that he was actually getting used to her reading his mind. 'They're in Sussex. Your parents are still here, though.'

Scorpius had to hand it to Angeli – she knew how to capture his attention. What were his parents still doing in this house?

He walked up to the parlour window to see both of his parents seated in the room on separate couches and doing separate things. 'Where's my mom's daughter?'

'You were never born,' Angeli reminded him. 'Draco and Astoria Malfoy struggled to have you, dearie. When you weren't born they were simply never able to have children.'

Scorpius looked at the pair inside the room and took in their stiff postures and lack of conversation. Evidently he had been the one to soften them up even before the radical changes of his first year at Hogwarts. 'Okay,' he said. 'So having a kid helped my parents. They could adopt tomorrow.'

Angeli merely arched a brow, waving her wand again. When the landscape came into focus, he had no idea where they were.

'The United States of America, dearie,' Angeli informed him. 'The state of New York to be precise.'

'Who do I know in New York?' Scorpius asked, entirely confused until a familiar man with black hair and green eyes strolled up the street surrounded by friends. 'Al?' he asked, incredulous.

'Albus Severus Potter grew up as a homosexual individual in the shadow of not only famous parents but a charismatic and charming older brother. He resented that,' Angeli explained.

'Yeah,' Scorpius replied. 'But he—' Scorpius stopped suddenly, realizing what Angeli was implying.

'Got over that?' she asked, finishing Scorpius's thought. 'That was thanks to you, dearie. You were the first person in Hogwarts aside from his family that wasn't either too awed by the poor child's last name and incredible resemblance to his father or put off by his sexuality to grow close to him. He transferred to an American school in his fourth year and has not returned home since then. They do not even know about his husband.'

Which meant that the Potter family who had loved and accepted Scorpius as one of their own wasn't whole themselves – they were like Scorpius's own family. That wasn't a very cheering thought, but Al looked happy here.

'But look at him,' Scorpius countered, pointing at Al. 'He's happy with his life here in. He's got a family and friends.' Even as he said the words, though, he thought of the Potter-Weasley clan and how sad they would be to be missing one of their own.

Angeli didn't respond to that thought, merely giving him a look that told she had knew exactly what he was thinking. 'There's one more to see, dearie,' she said, and in a tone so gentle that Scorpius knew exactly who was next.

The world came back into focus and Scorpius was looking at his own house. Liza had picked it out, and she had been so excited when they viewed it that he simply couldn't say no. Evidently another man had fallen prey to the same scheme. With some amount of trepidation, Scorpius walked up to the window so see Liza sitting on the couch and smiling next to Bobby Hunter. That made sense to Scorpius, Bobby was a Ravenclaw in his year and Liza and Bobby had dated briefly at the beginning of their sixth year. It made sense to Scorpius, but that didn't make it any easier to see.

'She's happy,' Scorpius observed dully. He didn't have the emotional capacity to say any more.

'Look at her smile, dearie,' Angeli insisted. 'Does Elizabeth Victoria Malfoy smile like that when she's with you?'

Scorpius was already looking at her smile, pained to see her looking at someone else like that. At Angeli's insistence, however, he looked closer and realized that the old woman had a point. Liza's smile had been what Scorpius first noticed about her, the way it lit up her whole face. The smile she had on while looking at Bobby now was the smile that she used when Scorpius talked about the patients at St Mungo's – she was happy that he was happy but not as invested in things as he was.

'They are talking about the possibility of having children, dearie,' Angeli told him. 'Does she wear that smile when the conversation comes up with you?'

'No,' Scorpius said, grimly. 'I'm the one that smiles like that during those conversations.'

Angeli didn't respond right away, so Scorpius looked away from Liza a moment to see what happened. The old woman had her head cocked to the side like she was listening to something, though Scorpius couldn't hear anything aside from the wind and snippets of conversation that drifted from the house. Angeli nodded once. 'Yes, I believe he should know too.'

'Erm, what?' Scorpius asked, wondering whether Angeli was actually entirely sane. He'd had his doubts in the past hour, but she had seemed safe…

'You know, dearie, I don't believe that I am entirely sane either,' she observed casually. 'But then, no one of interest ever is. But don't worry; this news I have to share with you is good.'

'Is it, now,' Scorpius replied, still mystified.

'Indeed. Lycanthropy is not inheritable,' she said, dropping that bomb on Scorpius in the same manner that others might use to observe that the sky was particularly cloudy of late or that their tea was too warm to drink just yet.

'I… it… what?' Scorpius sputtered. 'How do you know that?'

'I just do, dearie,' she replied, smiling at him mysteriously with a twinkle in her eyes. 'Shall we take a walk?'

Scorpius nodded absently, falling into step with Angeli. Lycanthropy wasn't inheritable – how could she be so sure? Could he trust her?

'I told you, dearie, I just know these things. And you can trust me – I have an excellent source. You'll know yourself soon enough.'

None of this was helping the thoughts that ran in confused circles around Scorpius's head, but Angeli moved on. 'Now, to your current problem. Bear in mind that I have only shown you the effects of the things you've done, we haven't touched on all that you will do. Have you decided?'

Scorpius nodded slowly. 'I like my life, and I think others do too. I'd like to keep it.'

Angeli nodded. 'I'm glad. Remember dearie, when in doubt look to your heart – the best cures are there.'

Scorpius wasn't sure what to make of this particular bit of philosophy, but Angeli raised her wand again and everything went black.

~*~

He came back to himself quicker this time, and with less of a headache for which he was thankful. The snow had stopped, and he couldn't see any signs that it had ever fallen. Was that just in the alternate timeline?

'Go home to your pretty wife, dearie. She's getting worried,' Angeli told him. Scorpius turned to thank her, only to find that he was alone. Scorpius wasn't sure where she had gone, but he decided to heed her advice and rushed home.

Once there, he found Liza in the parlour with Rose, Jason, and Al. They all jumped up at his entrance, looking relieved. Scorpius briefly wondered how long he had been gone, but he went immediately to Liza. She only managed a 'Scorpius! Where have you—' before he pulled her in for a kiss.

When he pulled back, she smiled – and he was relieved to see that it was her real smile, his smile. It went away though once she had a moment to regain her thoughts. 'Where have you been? You didn't take your wand. And you're freezing!'

Scorpius hadn't realized how cold he had been until Al cast a warming charm and his fingers and toes started tingling. 'Thanks, Al,' he said. 'I just had a bad day at work and needed to get out for a bit.'

'For two hours in sub-freezing temperatures, _without your wand_?' Rose asked incredulously, but Liza and Al looked at him with sympathy – they must have found the letter from his father.

Thankfully they didn't press the issue, and since everyone was there they all ate dinner together. It was a nice evening, but Scorpius had to admit to himself that he couldn't wait until they left so he and Liza could be alone.

When they were, they were upstairs in her library – both in the chair and Liza curled up in his lap with a book. She didn't start reading immediately, though.

'Where were you really?' she asked. 'You usually come to me when you have a bad day.'

'I was telling the truth,' Scorpius assured her. 'Work wasn't great, the full moon is tomorrow, and my mother is sick. I needed to get out of the house so I didn't spread my mood to you.'

And Scorpius explained. He told Liza about Angeli and his wish (she gave him a shocked look when he admitted that one) and the alternate lives he had seen. She pulled a face when he mentioned Bobby, making Scorpius laugh.

'And,' he said, somewhat shyly. 'Angeli told me that lycanthropy is… it's not inheritable.'

Liza's eyes grew wide. 'Do – do you trust her?'

Scorpius nodded silently, and Liza smiled again. After his story, Liza told him about her day (which was a bit less stressful and eventful than his) and then she continued reading her book as he thought about everything that had happened. Who was Angeli?

He decided to think about that later and ponder the Spattergroit cure for a time so that he could hopefully help his team once he got back. Angeli had said the best cures were in his heart. He snorted softly. If only all cures were in his heart, then maybe he might be able to…

The pieces fell into place with a dull thunk. Not his heart – his blood. The blood of someone who had Spattergroit previously and has the quickly reproducing cells of a werewolf. That could be precisely what they needed for the cure. He would have to send a vial with a letter to the hospital the next day so his team could start working on it. Scorpius smiled – Angeli had helped him again. He looked outside to see if she had followed him again when another piece clicked into place. He had thought there was something odd about Angeli and there was – she hadn't been bundled up or freezing when he saw her. Scorpius had felt like that as well, when they were in the alternate universe. 'Angeli' – of course. It was Latin, for Angel.

Scorpius looked down at his now sleeping wife and sent a silent prayer to the heavens.

_Thank you._

**Author's Note:**

> I has a [tumblr](http://ayrabelle.tumblr.com/).


End file.
